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A blog about living, loving, and urban homesteading in the Pacific North West & Midwest. Everything from gardening and home renovation to recipes and moving tips. Building community and growing together.

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After our big food prep day, we just couldn't bring ourselves to set everything back where it had been. SOMETHING needed to be done to get some more functional pantry space and get my huge, honking microwave off the counter!

I searched online for some microwave carts to replace one of our pantry shelving units, and didn't like what I saw. Baker's racks, however, might give us the depth I was searching for to get the microwave off the counter, and at a MUCH better price.

But sometimes you just get that feeling, and you know what you've got to do. Out the door on a whim to hit the thrift stores. There's one right nearby, but the furniture section is usually a little lackluster. We enjoy going over to a nicer side of town with two major thrift stores, and besides, I just had the feeling that we shouldn't stop nearby first.

We found something we thought we could jerry-rig to work, and went to the next one. Still nothing quite right, and we'd managed to talk our…

A friend and I concocted a scheme to do a bulk food-prep day. She's living in a 300 sq ft apartment with no real kitchen right now, and while she has access to the kitchen in the main house, it comes with strings attached. So, we thought we'd try having her join us for one of our food prep days, which we'd gotten out of the habit of doing anyway. It was fun!

The focus: Get some quick breakfasts into the freezer, and a lunch salad prepped in bulk. Maybe a little something extra for the freezer.

Our menu:

Balsamic lentil salad (made with kale to hold up to vinaigrette for a few days)Homemade Egg McMuffinsMini QuichesShredded chicken (for dumping on salads, quick lunches/dinners).
We did well! Mr. Moon dragged the microwave out of the kitchen for a little more counterspace, which will soon be available permanently when we build our microwave cart. After I did most of the paper-planning, we put him on knife duty, Friend on assembly duty, and I mostly directed & went to an …

Not a huge change at all, but Mr. Moon got a second job today. Selling restaurant smallwares & appliances at a local restaurant supply store. One day a week for now, but in time there may be more shifts available. Of course, that one shift is Saturdays. Which means that after a hard night at work, and before a hard night at work, he gets to work an extra shift--the day before any potential double shifts at work. On the one hand, it's not yet impacting his days off, but on the other his workweek got a little busier. Nothing to do but redouble our efforts at weekly organization, meal planning & execution.

As it stands, whenever he's had to work early morning shifts on Sundays, we've tended to use it as an excuse to get takeout for dinner. But, at one shift a week of retail income, the extra money being made will barely pay for an increased expenditure of once-weekly take-out (let alone twice-weekly). Instead, it's time to get down to business with some recipes th…

Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world... From a small university town in Michigan to the slightly larger city of Seattle. I'm a dreamer, a schemer, and an explorer. I'm very glad my partner lets me have a polyamorous love affair with coffee, because Coffee and I love each other very much. I'm coming to terms with being disabled; living with PTSD, OCD, and other such Alphabet Soup mental health complications, plus a bunch of physical Stuff including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and limited mobility. I feel like this blog is an important part of my journey. Something I need to share with others, to help us all grow and learn and change ourselves for the better with a sense of community about us. It's at least 50% cooking, but there's a bunch of other stuff here too!